84% of markets will maintain or up 2015 spend, with 38% planning a shift from traditional to digital

Most (84 per cent) UK marketers plan to increase or maintain spend in 2015, according to a new report from ALF.

Based on insight into 40,000 contacts at 6,000 major UK brands and their agencies, the survey also found that 38 per cent intend to shift budget away from traditional mass advertising to more personalised digital channels.

The channels marketers will be prioritising through the shift away from tradiitonal campaigns include websites (64 per cent) and events (45 per cent).

Social media is also core to 2015 strategies with 64 per cent of marketers seeing it as a critical enabler of products and services, compared to just 25 per cent in 2014. As a result, marketers are increasing their budgets more for social more than any other digital marketing channels.

‘Limited staff’ is the biggest stress point for nearly two-fifths (37 per cent) of makreters, with nearly 91 per cent of executives saying they need to bring in more help to get web traffic to their site. This concern was closely followed by ‘limited budget’ (21 per cent), with the majority of those having less than two per cent of company revenue spent on marketing.

Meanwhile, 11 per cent remain worried that marketing is still seen as a ‘cost centre’ in the business, rather than an area which boosts profit.

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